Some Aurora 911 Callers Waiting More Than 2 Minutes
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - With fewer employees answering calls and call volumes increasing, Aurora's 911 call center is no longer able to meet national 911 standards that call for answering 90% of all 911 calls within 15 seconds and 95% answered within 20 seconds.
"Every call is important," said Tina Buneta, Aurora's 911 director, who said up until last week, callers who did not get an immediate answer would have their call "ring until we could answer it."
So many emergency callers were getting frustrated, they would hang up and call back, further gumming up the system. So as of Jan. 25, if a call isn't immediately answered, callers now hear a recorded message acknowledging their call and urging them to stay on the line.
Buneta said the idea is to let callers know that 911 is aware they are there.
"What we are trying to do is reduce the number of repeat callers. People will call and if it's unanswered, hang up and call back."
By doing that, callers would lose their place in line and go to the end of the queue.
Asking 911 callers whose calls are not immediately answered to listen to a recording underscores Aurora's problem in answering crisis calls as fast as they would like.
In 2021, of the 278,439 calls to the city 911 system, 95.3% were answered in under 40 seconds, but 4.7% or 13,105 calls took more than 40 seconds to answer. Of those, it took 2 minutes or longer to answer 435 calls.
"It's our goal that nobody waits that long," said Buneta.
"Time stands still," she said. "Seconds feel like minutes, minutes feel like hours."
Aurora's 911 center was complying with national standards until the second quarter of 2021, said Buneta. She said there was a downturn in job applicants. Right now of the 91 call taker positions, 65 are filled and 26 jobs are vacant. Starting salary is $25 per hour.
While the number of job seekers dropped, the number of calls went up by about 20,000 from 2020. Buneta notes Aurora's population is growing, more and more people have cellphones and call 911 when they see something happen, and crime rates are also rising.
With fewer call-takers, the ones on the job have been asked to work more overtime, leading to burnout and people quitting.
"You get into a cycle of overtime and stress and it adds up," said the 911 director.
Solutions are not easy to come by. Buneta emphasized those entry level $25 per hour jobs are open to anyone with a high school diploma or GED. She said the department is trying to offer career paths and competitive salaries.
She said the public can help the situation by not using 911 for non-emergency calls. It should only be used for medical, fire or police emergencies. She said non-emergency public safety calls can go to 303-627-3100 and for city services, people can call 303-739-7000 or use the Access Aurora app.
"We're going to do everything we can," said Buneta. "We can't fail."